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We got lucky on the lumber scraps. There were enough partial sheets of plywood to close in almost three full sides. The itty-bitty hammer, on the other hand, nearly gave me carpal tunnel syndrome. Getting a nail through the thin plywood pieces was easy enough, but penetrating the four-by-four posts was a bear. Afterwards, I stowed the nails and other nasty bits as best I could, then wandered for a while. Eventually I admitted that I was just futzing around, trying for the illusion of a small measure of control.
“How long do you think these batteries last?” I asked, sitting on the ground next to Graeme in the lantern’s light. He’d made us a nest beneath the table, piling his clean clothes strategically atop the tarp and placing the carry-on flat to block an unenclosed gap on the short
